Posted by Dylan Lorimer, Google Earth and Maps for Business Product Manager

Since 2008, Google has worked with GeoEye to publish millions of square kilometers of satellite imagery to Google Earth and Maps users. In addition to the imagery the company shares with Google, GeoEye also collects satellite imagery for licensing by numerous governments and business customers around the world.

Google Earth Builder is designed to make it easy for a geospatial data provider to securely publish its data to specific users or developers. For example, during a crisis response effort such as a forest fire, a government agency might need a particular group of employees to be able to access recent satellite images of the forest on their tablets or smartphones in real time.

Today we’re delighted to announce that GeoEye is the first commercial satellite imagery provider to adopt the Google Earth Builder platform. By using Google Earth Builder, GeoEye will rely on Google's cloud infrastructure to process, host, and securely publish their satellite imagery and mapping layers. Doing so will make it easy for their customers to access GeoEye’s geospatial data from their computers, tablets and other internet-connected devices.

This also means GeoEye will be able to create new business models around hosted, subscription access to their data, and will be able to provide Google Enterprise customers with the option to license additional imagery from GeoEye for use within Google Maps, Google Earth and APIs.

We’re really excited to have GeoEye using Google Earth Builder and looking forward to them publishing a host of new subscription imagery layers to our Google Enterprise Maps and Earth customers. Learn more about GeoEye’s plans to create subscription imagery services with Google Earth Builder here.